ZTE Libero Flip is the cheapest foldable phone to date

21 February 2024

The Japanese smartphone market is a fascinating place where we get to marvel at devices that will sadly never grace our shores as is likely the case with the ZTE Libero Flip. This is a Galaxy Z Flip5 competitor with one major trick up its sleeve – it costs a fraction of the price. ZTE’s new clamshell foldable has a JPY 63,000 ($420 converted) list price but pre-orders get a hefty discount bringing the final price to JPY 39,800 ($265) - making this the most affordable folding phone to date.

ZTE’s new flip foldable features a 6.9-inch foldable OLED display with FHD+ resolution and a secondary 1.43-inch round cover screen with 466 x 466px resolution. The secondary screen dubbed Sub Display allows you to take calls, control media playback and can also function as a viewfinder for using the main camera on the back.

There’s a 50MP primary lens alongside a 2MP depth helper while the main 6.9-inch display also houses an embedded 16MP front-facing camera housed in a punch-hole cutout.

ZTE also packed a Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset alongside 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. The device boots Android 13 with ZTE UI on top and ZTE baked in some foldable specific features allowing you to separate menu items across both sides of the folding screen.

There’s a 4,310mAh battery with 33W fast charging compatible with Quick Charge 4+ and PD3.0 standards and IP42 water and dust rated which is pretty low ingress protection so even water splashed could do some damage. At least the device folds completely flat.

ZTE Libero Flip comes in White, Gold, and Blue colors and ZTE is also offering a plethora of back covers to suit your style. The device is already on pre-order from Japanese carrier Y! Mobile while open sales are scheduled to begin on February 29.

Source (in Japanese)